Orly Hilighter - the color of summer!

Oh my neon this color is awesome!!! Perfect for summer, and it stands out even more over white.

 

Yellow Monarch Nail Art

I've seen this design all over the blogisphere, and I just felt so tempted to do it myself!  And it goes with dotting tool week because the design has dots!

Isn't this just a fun manicure?  I LOVE it in yellow!!!!  But, if you don't, I've also seen this manicure in orange and pink.  I thought it was pretty easy to do.  All you need is a black striping polish to draw your lines, and then use your dotting tool and a white polish for the dots.  The base color here is Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Lightning. 

Summer Fruit Week - Day 2: Citrus Fimo French Twist!

Check out that title!  It's like how many concepts can I fit in one manicure?  This manicure is soooooo bright and fun and awesome, and the best part?  I got to use Zoya Pippa again! I love Pippa!  For this mani, I paired her with her bff Jancyn.  Don't they look great together?

Zoya Pippa = yellow nails, Zoya Jancyn = orange nails.

I couldn't stop there though, I had to try the french twist manis that have been circulating lately.  I think these two colors look awesome with it.

Then, since this is summer fruit week, I cut up some orange and lemon fimo sticks and stuck them on with my top coat.

This is such a fun festive summer manicure!  It feels JUICY to me! :)  Hope you're liking fruit week so far!  Any guesses on what other fruits I'm going to take on this week?

Random NOTDs

Lately my manicures have kind of been duds! It's hard coming up with gorgeous post-worthy nails EVERY DAY!  Today I didn't have anything new to post, so I went through my images to see if there were any manicures I hadn't posted yet, and here's what I found:

Hand-painted chevron: Zoya Dove base, light pink is Zoya Flora, and dark pink tips is Zoya Areej, outlined with dollar store black. 

Revlon Sunshine Sparkle (a shimmery light yellow, which you can't really tell from this picture) I think the stamp is from konad M77 plate.

Hopefully I'll come up with some fantastic ideas this week, if not, I may have to skip a day until my stock of images builds back up!  If you have any ideas for what kind of posts you'd like to see when I hit an inspiration block, please let me know in comments!

China Glaze Four Leaf Clover with a Herringbone Design!

So, I'm kind of in love with China Glaze Four Leaf Clover. Around St. Patty's Day EVERYONE was using this color and it became such a lemming of mine. I wanted it so bad! So, when Sally had their free China Glaze promotion last month, I had to use it to get this gorgeous color, and let me tell you, it lived up to its reputation of a GORGEOUS Kelly Green.

Please forgive my crappy iphone pic of the swatch. I did this mani over at my mom's and was only able to grab a quick snapshot on my phone before I started stamping.

Here is my final manicure.  I used BM 201 plate for the herringbone pattern.  I really loved this manicure.  It felt so trendy to me!  Speaking of trendy, the same night I did this mani, I also reunited with my lover, Pippa, this time on my toes! :D

Something about yellow toes makes me soooooo happy!  BTW, check out my new ottoman from Homegoods, isn't it cute?  Homegoods is definitely a weakness of mine!  I always bring home the cutest decor stuff from there. 

A bit of warning on these vivid China Glaze colors: THEY STAIN!  I use a base coat all the time, and I only ever have trouble with my China Glaze colors staining my nails.  Does anyone else have problems with this brand and staining?  Do I really have to buy a CG base coat to wear their gorgeous colors?  Any tips for me on these, please tell me I'm not the only one that has this problem with China Glaze.  One time I accidentally wore Shower Together without a basecoat on my toes and I STILL have a little staining on my big toe from it.  Lesson learned, for sure.  Just wish there was a way to wear these colors without the staining.

Pippa = my new obsession

Confession time: I am a total victim to trends.  Back in the day, whenever I saw LC on The Hills wearing black nail polish I had to wear it ALL the time, even though I previously thought it was only for goth girls.  Now I think black is one of the most chic colors out there.  This time around I'm starting to feel the same about yellow.  One of my favorite fashion bloggers love Maegan has been wearing yellow nails a lot lately, and it is soooooooo HOT!  This previously would not be a color I would choose.  I don't even think I owned a yellow polish before a few months ago!  But, now I want to wear it ALL the time.  First I dabbled with the adorable lemonade nails, and now I've got a cute daisy manicure to share with you lovelies!

Here's a Pippa swatch all on her own.  She's just so stinkin cute and sunny! 

 

Then I had this idea to stamp some daisies in black on the yellow.  The images for my thumb and the rest of my nails are from Konad M51.

 

This is really cute on its own, but decided to top it off by filling in the black outlines with a small nail art brush and some white polish.

I think the effect is super cute.  When I did it perfectly they look like stickers!  But, it was soooooo hard to get it perfectly in the lines. 

So, how do you feel about yellow?  Are there any colors that you totally avoid?  If so, I think it's time to break out of that box and give them a try!  You never know what you might like, or what might look good on you! 

Lemonade Nails

Recently Nail Art Stamping Chick hosted a contest on Facebook calling for nail art stamping designs using the color yellow.  I decided to enter with a lemonade inspired manicure.  I started this manicure with Zoya Pippa!  What a CUTE yellow!  Then, I turned it into a ruffian with dollar store white.  I really love this style.  I think I might've done this without tip guides too, which is like a miracle!  I notice that as I paint my nails more and more for this blog, I'm really getting much more steady and clean with my application.  Do you guys have trouble with that?  Would it help if I posted some things I've learned so far?

 So, here is the ruffian,  Then I added the lemons using BM04.  These were stamped with Konad Special Yellow Polish and then took a green striper to color in the leaves.

I love this fresh summery manicure.  Totally matching this lovely weather right now.  Needless to say I didn't win the contest - whomp whomp!  But that's okay!  I'm hoping I will be getting the new plates as a bday gift soon!  Are you following Nail Art Stamping Chick on Facebook, yet?  You totally should!  She often will post about great finds on eBay for cheap plates, and it is a great resource for stamping inspiration.